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Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The board gave its approval tonight the “county school facility tax," which would provide another source of revenue to pay off an anticipated $179 million in bond and interest payments owed after fixing and constructing new schools.

The county school facility tax would increase the 6.75 percent sales tax to 7.75 percent. Vehicles, medicine and groceries are exempt.

Tax revenue generated would be used to pay off these bonds by 2025. Without it, the school district must rely on property taxes to pay the debt.

….Without the sales tax, residents who own homes valued at $100,000 are expected to see a property tax increase to $358 in 2013 to $697 in 2019

Of the $2.7 million generated, $2.2 million would go to Belvidere School District

Store manager John Bevan said the decision was made July 6 and that the last day of operation had not yet been set. He said the company was unable to obtain land for a new store and decided to close the one on State Street in downtown Belvidere.

One step is for preliminary engineering at an initial cost of $81,000. The other step, costing $33,800, is for services of a right of way consultant. The city and county will be splitting that expense, with the county dollars coming out of its highway fund.

Once that portion of the engineering is done the city and county could find themselves with a much larger expense: buying land needed to finish the remaining three lanes of the project. A high-ranking Illinois Department of Transportation official told the committee that if the city and county provided the land, the state would finish the interchange…..

Irene Road interchange “is a gamble. I can’t tell you it will bring development. But I can tell you it won’t come without it.”

….

Stuart M. Kemp, offered a “worst-case scenario” to the committee, in which the city and county spend a lot of up-front money and then find out they are unable to successfully negotiate the purchase of the needed property.